I figured quickly. "Hey, whatta you mean—cheap? Four dollars and seventy-five cents—or almost five—for a hat!"
"Dat's a fine hat," Philip insisted. "Velour is a little more dear but it's worth—here, try it on."
It looked as if there was no way out. Philip was going to see that I got that hat.
"But I ain't got that much money. Last night—I spent—"
"Dat's all right. I'll lend you."
And he lifted the hat and carefully set it on my head. I turned to the mirror. That settled it. That hat had fitted Philip roomily but it just perched on the top of my dome. I have an unusually large head—not the melon type, I mean—just a large skull, and when I need a haircut which I usually do—I did then—I have quite a headsize. I'm not boasting.
Anyway, I bought the broad black sombrero I had put on my head when I first came into the shop and I paid off, and opened that door again forgetting about the swing of it and I got us both out quick, before Philip could give me a literal translation of what that nervous old woman said.
We ate our supper in a little ramshackle shed of a restaurant. The man who ran the place and cooked on a small stove in back of the counter served us grudgingly.
He had greeted me as we came in and surprised me so I had not responded—it was that black sombrero he was talking to, not me. I concluded he must have thought I was native. We had a couple of fried eggs sans steak.
Then Philip and I walked along the dark main street for a little while. Every time we'd come to one of those alleys which led down to the streets with the houses, he would find some reason to linger and stall around, kicking the unpaved walk with his heels. Finally, he broke down and frankly said he'd like to go see some ladies. He had not been able to get ashore last night, and I told him I had and that I had a big time and guessed I'd go back to the ship early. I wished him good luck, warned him against that bony French dame, and walked back toward the ship alone.
Back along the darkened streets, time and again Argentinians would give me a nod and a buenas noches—I must have reminded them of some well-known characters around that town with my face in the shadow of the broad-brimmed sombrero. In daylight there were quite a few sloppy-looking guys I noticed whom I might have been mistaken for. They, too, wore suits of some dark material that had never been pressed and stiff broad-brimmed hats. It must have been about ten when I climbed up on the ship. Our haggling with that old woman had taken longer than I thought.
As I walked along the river bank toward our ship she had looked sort of staunch and almost homey—it was good to know I had a bunk on the old tub. The old fellow who had been employed to sit smoking his pipe on the top of our gangplank as watchman was all for putting me off the ship, until I took my new hat off and he saw that no Argentinian ever wore a mustache and beard so thin and sparse. Undoubtedly, I must be a member of the crew. I was a Nord Americano, if not worse. I turned aft to the fo'castle to see if any of the gang were around—I wanted to show off. It seemed everyone was ashore except a few of the old fellows who had their bunk curtains drawn. I stopped to light a cigarette in the passage and almost yelped when my match lit up old Pat, the oiler, standing there propped up against the bulkhead, staring at his cabin door, his eyes glassy, and his cabin key held clutched, stabbing straight out into space. He evidently had been jabbing at his keyhole for some time and couldn't make it. His eyes rolled toward me.
"What's the matter, Pat? Ain't you feeling right?" I asked.
A thin drool of saliva bubbled from his stiff lips as he tried to say something. He gave that up finally and spoke from somewhere deep inside of him like a ventriloquist.
"Uper—er up—huh? Uper er up— Can' get th' gar-damn key in 'er."
I took the key from his stiffly curled fingers and opened the oiler's cabin. Pat waved me aside, pushed back against the bulkhead, and then went slowly forward on the momentum of his push. He leaned far back with a slight list as he went by, though his uncreased felt hat kept an even keel. I looked in after he'd landed in his cabin sprawling prone on his bunk.
"O.K.? You all right, Pat? Want me to get something?"
His head lifted slowly and his eyes stared at me as if he'd seen me for the first time. Then he blinked and growled through his drooling mouth.
"Ger ra 'ell arra 'ere, ya gar damn furriner. Warra 'ell ya doin' on 'is ship? 'Er 'merican ship—I'm er 'merican—"
And as he tried to pull his wandering lips into a snarl and comer his eyebrows into a vicious righteous scowl to say something else, I quietly closed his door and went forward to my cabin. I wondered if I ought not to get me one of those small American flags one sees stuck in Washington's Birthday cakes, and wear it tucked into the hatband of this new black sombrero the way people wear feathers at big football games to show what side they're on.
That hat aroused some controversy aboard and in a sense split the ship into two distinct factions. Conservative, muscle-bound mentalities who sneered at my black sombrero contended Pd crossed over and had gone native. These unimaginative provincials laughed with cruel sarcasm whenever I dressed up to go ashore. There were even vague threats, and I kept my hat hidden lest it be burned by those Ku Kluxers.
Then there were the Liberals, Joe, Perry (when he got out of the clink), Birdneck, and a few others who found my hat dashing and very provocative. Perry, on occasion, tried to borrow it. They were happy to go ashore with me and seemed proud to be seen with so debonair and cosmopolitan a deckhand.
Mush—naturally—and Al (he of the untrustworthy short upper lip) sided with the rightwing. I felt their companionship was no loss. Their sartorial tendency was completely collegiate —a fad prevalent in the ginny twenties and still preserved in the offices of some publishers and a few architectural ateliers (where my ideas on hats and sundry aesthetic matters are still not acceptable) to this day.
17. Joe, the Maestro
IN ONE SENSE RIO SANTIAGO WAS A CLEAN PORT, there was a semi-weekly inspection by the medical authorities that kept it that way. Not the harbor or sewerage—that was what it was. I mean the houses with the high lighted doors.
These examinations took place on Mondays and Thursdays, I was told—and I wondered if that elegant aristocratic savant with the handsome white beard was the medico who performed the rites. And did the sailor-boy cop with the black mustachios guard his shiny black walking stick with the silver knob at each doorway as he had at our gangplank?
Since Perry and the Polack had been jugged, we hadn't seen much of that cop either. Maybe Perry had talked him into a game of Seven Up or some other time-killer to while away the long hours. Perry was a very persuasive guy.
After that first wild night ashore, there was never again a mass stampede for the Elysian fields below the main street. On occasion some of the guys would wander down that way singly or in pairs.
Early one morning I recall Chips climbing up the gangplank still dressed in his going-ashore clothes with a gentle, satiated smile on his face. He'd invested ten pesos and spent the night. An eye-opener of mate, the native herb tea which is sipped through a metal tube, was thrown in for the same price. Chips said it (the mate) was very good, healthy, and invigorating. He considered his ten pesos well spent.
At breakfast each morning those individuals who couldn't resist the charm of the ladies and had the pesos to spend would bring the latest reports on the personnel and conditions behind the large lighted doors. But those reports were often confusing and misleading.
For example, if one said, "Hey, remember that big blonde wit' d'red ribbon around her hair—in d'Paris Bar? She ain't dere any more."